Friday, November 01, 2013

NOW THAT'S A SPLASH PAGE: Jack Kirby's Thor Goes Cosmic

Splash pages, you gotta love 'em. A blank canvas where the artist can hit you with a large dose of illustrated 'wow'. This week, while many point to The Fantastic Four or Captain America as Jack Kirby's best work, I think 'The King' was his electric best on The Mighty Thor, 'marvelising' the Norse pantheon with pages like this one;

Sure, you can modernise them all you want, but Thor's classic set of duds are some of comics best. Yellow zebra boots included. Here Kirby literally whips up a storm in the hopes of a prevailing Thunder God - just like I'm betting Hollywood are currently hoping for too!

Thanks Karl - yes The King did have a bad run of being drawn over. Worst of course at DC. I mean who gets the biggest artist in comics to do his take on Superman, then after the pages are submitted gets an artists to redraw the title character in the panels and make him more Curt Swan like?

And then still tries to sell the book to fans as 'Kirby's'. Of all the used car salesmen techniques in comics, that has to rank right up there.

Kirby's Thor is my favorite of all time. And yes, that includes Chris Hemsworth. ;) To me, if something in the drawing of Thor by any artist doesn't scream "King" then it just could be any random Norse guy doing cosplay.

All non-original images used on this site remain the property of their respective copyright holders, and are used promotionally with appreciation. If your images have appeared and you would like the way they are presented amended or even removed - simply leave me a comment and it shall be done.